


Copilot

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, weeping wednesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2675723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo shook with anger all over again, but his knuckles were sore and Trowa’s face was bleeding and now he knew they were going to die out here, alone.</p><p>--</p><p>The 2 man space station Duo and Trowa are on is dying. They have 12 months. Desperation, anger, claustrophobia and hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Clara for the beta! And for the tumblr crew and your never-ending inspiration and encouragement, much love.
> 
> There will be mentions of sex, some mild violence, swearing and the tough conversations and situations that come when you're trapped in a small space with someone else and think you're going to die.

# January

“There’s no seasons in space.” Duo said, his voice thready with muffled hysteria. “I can’t believe you’re making a calendar that doesn’t make any sense. Even if there were — altered seasons, here, what’s the point?”

“I calculated it, we have twelve months before we’ll get back to the closest rendezvous point, even with them meeting us halfway.” Trowa said. He was wearing his deceptive calm, the one that had fooled Duo during the war, and even after it. It was only the two years they’d spent on the minuscule space station that Duo had begun to unpack the variances in Trowa’s moods. “Or the equivalent of a year, take it however you want.”

“Just because you’re from Earth doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Calendar must make it seem homey, huh, instead of stuck on a piece of shit that’s going to kill us both.” In the night, or what the station considered night — just dimmed lights and enough time for them to sleep — something had gone catastrophically wrong. The station that had been balanced for long term living, an experimental prototype to combat overpopulation, was losing its life-support systems one by one. It was breaking down, after only two years, and they were so far from home. It felt like just last week they had hosted visitors, showed off the marvels of the mini-station, had scientists exclaim that _this_ was humanity’s savior.

Trowa shrugged. He continued making a grid on a piece of paper. And then another. Methodical lines etched out perfectly straight, freehand. “Supplies should last until then.”

“Yeah, I’d like to double check that, myself.”

Trowa ignored him, made another grid. Duo made a disgusted noise and went to the control panel. After a few minutes — Trowa was on his eighth grid — he slammed his fist against it.

“Trowa, unlock the fucking system.”

“Heero helped me lock it down.” Trowa said calmly. Ninth grid.

“What the hell. What are you hiding from me? Stop — just stop doing that and look at me.” It was difficult for Duo to hold his temper, all he wanted to do was beat the shit out of Trowa. Trowa, who sedately drew another grid on paper and then looked up at him. “You’d only lock me out if there was something to hide. We’re in this together, Trowa. We took this mission together and we’ll finish it together so unlock the fucking system so I can do my own supply tally.”

“No.” Tenth, eleventh.

Duo punched him. The twelve grid had a jarring line through it where the pen had ripped into the paper. Duo punched him again. Trowa let Duo hit him four times before he countered, grabbed Duo’s wrists and yanked him down against him. It was almost like an embrace. Duo headbutted him, kneed him, kicked at him. Trowa stayed silent, fingers locked around Duo’s wrists until the other man finally stopped.

“Fuck you. Fuck you, Trowa, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.” Duo hissed.

“We should have about twelve months of supplies.” Trowa said again, softly. “I don’t intend to die this far from home, Duo. I don’t intend for you to die this far away from them either.”

“Then show me the fucking tally.”

“Today is January first, it would be nice if your new year’s resolution would be to trust me.” Trowa forced some amusement into his voice. Duo shook with anger all over again, but his knuckles were sore and Trowa’s face was bleeding and now he knew they were going to die out here, alone.

“I’ll hack it if I have to. Or I’ll get Heero to reverse it, the comm is still open. He’ll do it for me.” 

“No, he won’t.”

“What, did you guys make some kind of silent buddy pact against me? Is that what this is? The worst kind of surprise birthday party?” Duo jeered. Trowa loosened his grip on Duo’s wrists, but he didn’t fully let go. His thumbs worked small circles against Duo’s skin. Trowa’s fingers didn’t even tremble and his voice was still level. And in that moment Duo hated him.

“I wasn’t going to make a liar out of you. Heero agreed with me that was the best course of action.”

“So you’re just going to keep me in the dark instead?”

“Yes.”

“Dammit, Trowa! This is practically kidnapping.”

“Duo, why did you take this mission?” Trowa let go of Duo’s hands. He sighed and shut his eyes. Tension lines formed at his forehead, a crease just above his brow that hid under his hair, mostly. “Shouldn’t you have stayed with Hilde? Or accepted the Preventers position?”

“What? Why are you asking that _now_?”

“After two years, I haven’t figured it out.” Trowa’s puzzled expression turned into a frown, he shared his frustration. Duo couldn’t help but laugh, he threw back his head and howled with laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation. Trowa Barton was worried about that little fact, two years too late.

“You won’t believe it’s because I fell for your conversational prowess and just knew I couldn’t let you up on this boat alone, huh?”

“No, we barely knew each other before this.”

“Your devilish smile?”

“I don’t smile often. And you seemed — seem — like someone who needs people around.” Trowa shrugged, his jacket created a scratching tinny noise against the station floor. “Five years with infrequent visits from acquaintances doesn’t seem like your thing.” A quirk of his lips. “Five years with me.”

“I didn’t want to become a Preventer.” Duo rolled over, sprawled out on the floor next to Trowa. “We just got done with the wars, I can’t believe Wufei wanted more of that. I wanted a home.”

Trowa nodded. 

“And?”

“And what?”

“Salvaging, staying at home, marrying, growing old with someone.” Trowa said softly.

“Shouldn’t you be asking yourself that?”

“No, as you pointed out my conversational prowess is clearly why I spend so much time with other people.” 

Duo laughed again, but it was less loud, less hysteric, less angry.

“I wanted to get away.”

Trowa stayed silent, he didn’t know what to say to that. Duo sat up, and picked up the first calendar sheet. He took Trowa’s pen and drew a line through the first block.

“You’re a real bastard, Trowa.”

“Probably.” Trowa agreed.

“I’m not going to forgive you for this.”

“I hope not.”

“I won’t forgive Heero, either.”

That caused Trowa to open his eyes. He stared at the ceiling before he turned his head and stared at Duo. His expression was no longer confused, but instead he wore open concern. “When we get back, give yourself time, then forgive him.” He instructed.

“When _we_ get back, huh?”

“I told you I don’t intend to die.”

“Oh, so are you going to kill me and eat my body to survive the long trip home?”

“I’ve never eaten someone from L2 before.” Trowa said so matter-of-factly that Duo did a doubletake.

“Does that mean you’ve eaten someone _not_ from L2?”

“Mercenaries don’t bury the dead, they eat them. It’s cheaper.” Trowa quipped, his tone and expression revealing nothing. Duo stared a while longer, and as if willed by his gaze, Trowa showed him a very small smile — it was a joke. Probably.

“Gross. You don’t even know where they’ve been?”

“You do if you killed them.”

“Ah, that’s true.”

“Are you going to stay staring at the ceiling? Let’s do a check of the gardens.” Duo stood up. “Unless you’re hiding the fact that the gardens are overrun with dinosaurs and killer fungi from me or something.”

“No, we would die a lot faster if that was the case.” 

“Gee, thanks.”

Trowa stayed on the floor a while longer before he joined Duo. “I’m not sorry.” He said.

“I know, that’s why I can’t forgive you.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“Say that again in eleven months.”

Trowa leaned into Duo’s space, then. He cupped his hands around Duo’s cheeks, gentle, his thumbs rested on Duo’s cheekbones. “I will.” Then he let go. Together they went to visit the gardens — the heart of the station. 

The gardens were really more of a small forest with a few grids to grow vegetables and fruit. There were some experimental plants as well, something Duo had nicknamed the meatnut because it was a vine that sprouted nuts that had soft insides, like rare steak, and were packed full of protein.

Everything looked fine. If Duo hadn’t seen the warning messages, heard the communications over the comm and the way everyone’s faces had turned ashen, he wouldn’t have believed the station was failing. It was almost unfair, the flowers were blooming and all he could think of was how he didn’t want to die in the middle of space.


	2. Chapter 2

# February

Duo managed to not speak to Trowa for an entire two weeks. They moved around in the small space station like strangers. Duo tended to his half of the gardens, his half of the maintenance that was reachable from inside and ate and slept and bathed alone. The water system on the station was supposed to be state of the art too, it cycled and recycled and broke down molecules to clean and refresh both air and water.

Everything seemed normal, outside of his ignoring Trowa. The gauges and maintenance continued on, the gardens still grew. They still had food, air, water. Duo’s baths were still warm and when he curled up on his bunk in his room the climate control still worked.

“Are you sure the station’s systems are failing?” He finally broke the silence.

Trowa was seated at the control panel, typing. He stopped when Duo spoke and turned a little to look at him. “Of course it is.”

“I haven’t noticed anything yet.”

“There’s still time.”

“I thought you were lying to me so that I wouldn’t freak out about the end is nigh and stuff.” Duo shoved his hands in his pockets. It was either that or Trowa had been planning a suicide rescue mission and neither seemed to be occurring.

“No, I like you more than that.”

“But you’re still lying.”

“I didn’t think you’d freak out about dying. You were a pilot as well.” Trowa frowned and typed a few more words before he closed the program. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you with the truth.”

“You’re just not telling me because it’s funny.”

“Heero and I have a bet going on how long it will take you to kill me.” 

“That better be a joke, Trowa.”

“You can’t tell?”

Duo studied Trowa’s face. There was no small smile, no lift of the eyebrows. Trowa’s face was as stone as he had ever seen it.

“Stop fucking with me.”

“I’m writing letters to Wufei, do you want me to say anything in them?”

“Why letters?”

Trowa shrugged. “He’s on assignment for the year, it isn’t undercover work but it’s pretty delicate, apparently.”

“You think he wouldn’t want to know this?”

Trowa smiled, then. Duo watched the corners of Trowa’s mouth curve up, the small tensions in his neutral mask relaxing into something like fondness.

“I know he wouldn’t want to know this. When we get back you can both not forgive me.”

“I’m going to crack the system lock eventually.”

“I trust Heero more than I trust myself.” Trowa got up from the control panel, he walked the length of the makeshift bridge-cockpit. It was a scaled down version of any other ship’s bridge and had more of a cockpit feel due to the limited space and visual tools. The first time they had entered, Duo had called it claustrophobic. “Do you know any card games?”

“Uh, poker?”

“Do you want to play?”

“Are you telling me that we’ve spent two years shooting the shit with technical info and other really boring conversation topics when we could have been playing strip poker?” Duo grinned, it was a little false but he didn’t think Trowa would mind.

“Do you want to play strip poker?” Trowa sounded mildly perplexed. “Why?”

“Why not? I mean, unless you want to start bidding things like control panel passwords.”

Trowa snorted. “Strip poker it is. Let me go get the cards.”

Duo was a poker player who went on instinct tempered with educated guesses. He had grown up around gambling, all different kinds, and knew a thing or two about when to hedge your bets. However, he had nothing on Trowa’s poker face. Trowa didn’t have Duo’s instinct for bets, in turn, but he was very clearly counting cards or playing standard predictions in a very familiar way. Duo could almost imagine Trowa, much younger with smaller hands, sitting between older men around a wooden table on Earth, playing cards for chores, for loot, for his right to be there at all. At least, that was much how Duo had learned, but it had been on the run or with that handful of people he knew he could trust.

Trowa steadily lost clothing but Duo lost his in groups. Soon Trowa was sitting on the floor with only the cards in his hand and his underwear on. Duo still had his pants and socks but lost three hands in a row, leaving him naked.

“Hm.” Trowa said.

Duo groaned. “You get me alone and naked and all you can say is that?”

“Should I say something else?”

“What about — what a smokin’ bod, Duo! Or, man of my dreams, Maxwell! Or anything that showed appreciation for my mound of manflesh.” Duo stood, did a little turn, he rocked his hips in the air and struck a pose.

“You'd feel better if we knew each other more, is that it? Since we didn't get to know each other the silence bothers you. All right. I’ve always thought you were beautiful.” Trowa said. Duo flinched. There was too much honesty in Trowa’s voice — but he couldn’t tell if it was the truth or if Trowa was playing along. He’d been unable to read anything from Trowa since the station started to fail. “Was that the wrong thing to say?”

“Dammit, Trowa, don’t say things like that unless you mean it.”

“I’m not lying about that.”

“Well, it’s a little fucking late to start being honest, isn’t it?”

Trowa shrugged. “No, because in the end you’ll remember what I said, even if you still won’t know what’s true or not.” He then inclined his head, as if waiting for Duo to strike him.

Instead, Duo fled.


	3. Chapter 3

# March

Trowa methodically marked off the days on his homemade calendar. It was March 23rd when Duo woke up cold. He wrapped his blanket around him — thin, but made of triple insulated star fiber or whatever they called it, super warm, basically — and walked out to find the hallways dim. The station was still operating on the night-day switchovers.

He heard the sound of another door open and saw Trowa’s shape move into the hall. Trowa stood there before he said: “Are you cold too?”

“Freezing. What happened?”

“Climate control started to fail. We can reroute some of it, probably. I’ll be sending it to the main deck.” Trowa disappeared back into his room, and Duo to his own. That meant less privacy, fewer places to run. The climate control would be sent to the main deck and the gardens, until they would have to send it to only one place.

And then they would start to run out of food. Duo leaned against the door of his room, he could feel the chill of the metal through the blanket. He envied and loathed Trowa’s voice, that steady calm that had just decided what to do — he hated that Trowa had taken his voice from him, almost three months ago and now Duo was just along for the ride.

He had thought about trying to force Trowa’s hand, to use himself as a bargaining chip, but he wasn’t sure Trowa would take the bait. He still didn’t know if Trowa was intending to try to save them both, only save one of them, if Trowa was only in it for himself. Two years of living together and Duo realized how little he truly knew Trowa and how much the way Trowa had crossed enemy lines and ally lines with ease in the war marred his view of Trowa’s loyalties.

Duo dressed, he gathered the bedroll and other belongings in his room and moved to the small bridge of the station. Trowa was already there, already put his things in the corner just to the left of the door and already laid back down to sleep.

“How do you do that?” Duo asked.

“Do what?”

“Just pick up and lay down again without a care in the world like we’re not going to die up here.”

“We won’t die up here. And you aren’t concerned about that, you’re not really worried about dying.” Trowa sat up a little. “It’s the waiting you don’t like. It’s the fact that I lied.”

“Damn right it is! Who gave you the right to do that to me?”

“No one.” Trowa sat up more. “I came up here because I can’t stand the way other people say my name.”

Duo stared at the admission, tried again to find signs of Trowa lying. He only saw a strangely open expression on Trowa’s face and wondered if that meant Trowa was feigning honesty, or if this was a moment of truth. He didn’t know why Trowa decided to share that, then. What was the point, the segue, was it just a distraction?

“Like ‘Trowa’?”

Trowa shrugged. “Don’t you hear it?”

“What, the sound of your name?”

“The echo.” But Trowa had apparently lost patience with Duo and flattened himself out on his bedroll. “Good night again, Duo.”

“There’s no echo, Trowa. No echo at all, Trowa Barton.” Duo said, angry that Trowa had diverted the conversation again and angry that Trowa was still stuck on that. “Doesn’t mean shit. Don’t tell me you came up here for a five year contract because you weren’t sure who you were. Sounds like you were just scared.”

Trowa didn’t answer, but Duo was sure he was faking sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

# April

“Heero, you need to help me undo the lock.” 

“No.”

“Don’t start echoing Trowa.”

“There’s a reason we’re not going to let you in.”

“This isn’t a game — don’t acquire a sense of playing with your prey now, Yuy!”

Heero crossed his arms. The video feed is choppy. The station moved sluggishly through space and whenever it moved into range of another large body, or even a chunk of too big space debris, it would knock part of the comm system out. Calls in and out were becoming more infrequent, even as they drew closer to home. It was ironic.

“I’m supporting Trowa’s decision.”

“Why? I at least deserve that much.”

“Do you?” Heero asked. Duo stared at the monitor.

“What the hell does that mean? Of course I do, I’m a person, in case you forgot. A person who has his own desires and ways of doing things. I’m his equal, we were in this together until you two decided to cut me out.”

“Why did you agree to that mission?” 

“Why not?”

“Duo.” Heero sighed. It was such a human sound of exasperation that it took Duo aback. “Do you trust us?”

“No, I sure as fuck don’t. I’m not going to wait around to die — not like this. I’ve already done that song and dance, and I’ve already watched people waste away around me. You two aren’t going to ask me to do that again.”

“Our numbers are sound.”

“Then share them.”

Heero shook his head. “I’m supporting Trowa’s decision.”

“Trowa doesn’t even trust himself.” Duo snapped. He didn’t care that Trowa was just a few feet away and could hear every part of the conversation. There was no privacy aboard the station, not anymore. “ _You_ know why _he_ came up here, don’t you? So, how am I supposed to trust him? Between the three of us, I’m the one who doesn’t lie.”

“You’re the one who isn’t a soldier.” Trowa added, perfectly neutral. He caught Heero’s eye, over Duo’s shoulder.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, I fought too.” Duo turned. How dare they not only keep him in the dark but now Trowa cut into Duo’s call to share another meaningful look with Heero. Without giving Heero a goodbye Duo slammed the end button on the panel and cut the feed. “Or is that a special little club now? Only the best little boys get to join the soldiers.”

“Your independence.” Trowa said.

Duo just made fists, tensed, waited.

“I envied Heero’s perfection, Quatre’s kindness and Wufei’s noble nature. And your independence.” Trowa paused, and exhaled through his teeth, a parody of a smile. “It’s not as simple as that, Heero isn’t perfect and Quatre isn’t a saint. Wufei joined the Preventers because he needed the conflict to keep finding himself. But I haven’t been able to figure out where the flaw in your independence is.”

“We’re not fucking character studies for you.”

“Do you know how I feel? I understand and I don’t. He told me to follow my emotions but how do I know if they’re mine?”

“So, I should feel sorry for you, is that it? Nice try, but I don’t feel too generous right now.”

Trowa leaned his head back, it was simultaneously submissive and rebellious. He showed Duo his neck, the perfect opportunity for someone to slit his throat or gut him and if he had been on Duo’s block years ago he would have been an easy target for anything. But he was also averting his eyes, and everyone knew the best way to slit a throat was to force the main deck down, so the jugular and carotid aren’t separated.

“No. You haven’t asked me if I trust you.”

“I’m a trustworthy person.” Duo replied, immediately, but he couldn’t believe Trowa had just said that. “Unlike some people I’m not mercenary with my morals.”

“I don’t trust you, Duo.” Trowa’s voice was soft and strained. “And you don’t trust me.”

“I _did_.”

“I thought you didn’t lie.” And Duo is trapped by Trowa’s gaze, but only for a few seconds. Then one of them threw a punch, or maybe both of them. They hadn’t solved anything between them. Not in the four months that Trowa betrayed Duo with the station controls. Perhaps, not in the two years and four months they had been aboard the station, first, when Trowa and been surprised to see Duo bound up as his copilot. _I thought I was going alone._ Trowa had said and Duo had just grinned and said _Me too_ and maybe that was when Trowa decided Duo did lie after all.

Trowa fought back, he didn’t try to restrain Duo this time. They both fought dirty. Duo had tricks from growing up on the street, swift and he drove his fingers and elbows into pressure points and soft tissue. Trowa was disciplined and knew how to use every angle of his body like a weapon.

They were also both out of practice. The war and the work after the war hadn’t been anything like their childhoods. Duo’s left hook was too weak to be a threat, not compared to his right. Trowa kept reaching for knives he no longer kept on his body and finally settled on an attempt at strangulation. Trowa’s fingers dug in but before Duo even saw the edges of his vision darkened he kneed him in the groin. To Trowa’s credit, he hung on, some amount of willpower over pain but it was all too easy for Duo to throw him off, then.

“You’re so fucked up, did you know that?” Duo panted, scooted away from Trowa. He needed space and needed to be nimble in case they fought again. “It would help if you made some noise when I beat the piss out of you.”

Trowa didn’t say anything, just pushed himself onto his hands and knees, and Duo watched him force his breathing into slow controlled motions.

“I think I liked you better when you were an amnesiac and freaking out.” 

“I was more likable then.” Trowa agreed, unexpectedly.

“So, what happened?” It was a joke.

“I remembered who I was and what I’d done.”

“When you get home, are you going to think back to this moment and say something like that? Maybe crack a few jokes to Heero, since you two are a laugh a minute and be all, man I was a likable person until I totally fucked Duo over.”

“I’m not going to fuck you over, Duo.”

“You sure are acting like it.”

“Why did you come up here, Duo?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know. Too bad you did something stupid like locked me out of the station controls.”

“Sounds like I’m not the only one who’s fucked up.” And then Trowa laughed. Duo wasn’t sure what the sound was at first — because in two years and four months he hadn’t heard Trowa laugh — a strange soft sound that made Trowa’s shoulders shake. Then he tossed back his head and truly _laughed_. “My copilot.” Trowa said, when he finished laughing.

For some reason that lifted a weight off of Duo’s chest.


	5. Chapter 5

# May

The days blurred together for Duo. Trowa kept meticulous count but there was no reason to double up on duties. They moved some of the plants into the bridge. Duo spent most of May putting together some kind of fake sun lamp and Trowa transplanted the things they thought would live the longest. It was a miracle they made it five months before something major broke. The lights on the control panel flashed and the computer informed them that the value for the air control system would have to be fixed manually.

“Guess that’s my number, huh?” Duo asked. “Perfect time to send me off and then have me never return.”

“You’re my copilot.”

“And?”

“I’ll reroute systems, so you won’t be so cold when you go down to fix it. I’ll turn the lights on as you go too, then you can always run back here if you think I’m trying to kill you.” Trowa frowned. “We don’t have much warm clothes, though.”

“We can improvise, I did a crawl once through the guts of L2, it was cold as an asteroid on ice but I managed.”

They gave Duo both of their pairs of warm socks and gloves and Trowa cut a hole through one of the emergency blankets so Duo can wear it like a poncho. Trowa wanted to offer Duo his jacket and shirt too, but Duo declined with a snort.

“It won’t kill me, Trowa, I promise.”

“It’s not an issue of supplies, I keep saying that, but it’s all about the cycling of the systems and when they fail the air will just turn poisonous and we’ll die quickly.” Trowa said. 

“Are you trying to be reassuring? Because it isn’t working, but remember, I’m a colony boy. I know this shit. I thought you were just messing it up because you’re landborn.” Duo grinned and impulsively grabbed Trowa’s hand to squeeze. “I don’t trust you, but you’re going to need someone to do this, unless you want both of us dead. And I need you to unlock the maintenance door remotely, so it sounds like we’re even, huh? And it’s not just poisonous, it’s an easy way to go. Not like suffocating at all.”

“Good to hear it,” Trowa said and actually flashed Duo a small smile.

“You’re going to give people the creeps if you keep smiling whenever people talk about death.” 

“Hypocrite.”

“Don’t you know, the God of Death isn’t that morbid, it’s just a universal truth.”

Trowa didn’t respond to that. He sat down at the control panel. “Are you ready?”

“Just say the word, Captain Barton!”

“I’ll see you back here soon,” Trowa said.

“As soon as I can make it,” Duo agreed. The hallway of the station was cold and dark. Duo could see his breath. “Fuck. You’re going to owe me for this.”

One by one the panels of the floor lit up with a dull glow. Duo followed the pale lights down the hall and to the first maintenance hatch. If he was lucky he could reach the valve from there and it would be a quick fix. If he was unlucky he would have to continue down the hall to the second hatch.

“Let me know if you move on.” Trowa called down the hall, voice abnormally loud in the emptiness of the station. Duo swore. 

“I didn’t know you could shout like that!” 

“I didn’t think you’d hear me if I was quiet.”

“Going to check this one first.” Duo pried the cover off the hatch and wiggled in. The usual thrums of the station were silent, and over half of the lights and wires inside the hatch were dim or completely off. Duo wondered if he could hack into the control panel from here, but the tip of his nose was already going numb and he knew soon the cold would seep through his two layer gloves and socks.

He searched for the right valve, unscrewed it to examine the circuits underneath and groaned. It looked fine, which meant he had to head further down the hall. “Got to go to the second one. Moving now.” He yelled, replaced the valve and hatch cover. The floor lit his way to the second hatch.

“Got you, you piece of shit.” Duo flipped the circuitry over, levered out the burned pieces and formed some new connections with strips of wire. It wouldn’t hold for too long, but hopefully it would for long enough. He headed back towards the main deck of the station at a run. 

The warmth of the bridge hit his face like relief, but it burned his ears and Duo was too hot and too cold all at once. He stripped out of his many layers, took the empty chair next to Trowa. “Should be fixed for a few months, it just burned through. There must have been a surge or something.”

“Here.” Trowa said. He pressed a cup of tepid water into Duo’s hands. “I warmed it under your sun lamp.” It was just barely above room temperature, but Duo still clutched it like a lifeline.

“Thanks for the nasty water, Trowa.”

“Thanks for fixing that, Duo.”

Duo drank it all, even though it tasted tinny and the warmth barely moved from his throat to his stomach. 

“I almost hoped this station would fail.” Trowa started. Duo looked over, he couldn’t read Trowa’s expression, again, still, but there was a tightness in his jaw. Regret, guilt or maybe frustration. “When I signed on — if it failed and I was alone up here I thought I might be able to figure some things out. I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“Was that some kind of death wish confession? I can’t help you with that, man.”

“No. It’s — “ Trowa looked at him. His jaw worked. Then his shoulders drew in and he slumped. “An apology.”

“Sooo, that was a sabotage confession. Did you really fuck the both of us over for your existential crisis?”

“No.” Trowa sighed. “Once, Catherine stopped me once, from self-destructing. Conflicting emotions causes careless and negligence.”

Duo sat in silence, puzzled out the words. Trowa’s eyes were still locked on him.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” 

“I thought you should know, that’s all.”

“You’re going to have to say it a lot clearer than that. I’m not part of your conspiracy with Heero, get it?” Duo threw the cup at Trowa, he aimed high and it sailed over the other’s head. 

“When I took on this name, I had been thinking that it would be nice to have someone else’s identity. Just to try it on. And then Trowa Barton was shot and killed and I received his mission.”

“Coincidence, Trowa. Coincidences happen.”

Trowa leaned back in his chair. “You say that, but if that was true wouldn’t the universal truth be less personal?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If death is a fact of the world then it isn’t even worth mentioning. But you make it personal, don’t you?”

“Shut the hell up.”

Instead Trowa reached a hand out, palm up.

“You are right about me, I betrayed the people who raised me. How about you?”

Duo should have hit him again, or yelled, or stormed off back into the cold belly of the station. But they were seven months away from dying, according to Trowa’s paper calendars, and he still felt chilled to the bone. He took Trowa’s hand, laced their fingers together.

“They left me. All through everything — the plague, the fire, the war — I’m the one who gets spared the ax.” The words caught in his teeth, his tongue felt clumsy and he thought he felt Trowa’s hand tighten around his, just slightly. “And here you are, doing it again.”

“I’m not going to leave you, Duo. You’re my copilot.”

“When did you decide that?”

“Day one, two years and five months ago.”

Duo’s hand spasmed. “What. I thought you said you didn’t trust me. This is why people think you’re a prick, you know? You’re a liar.”

“Yeah, I am. Do you feel more comfortable, now that we know each other better?” Trowa let go of Duo’s hand. “It will be a tight window. We’ll barely make it to the rendezvous point, we might even miss it by a day.” It was a confession.

It meant that they could die a day before they were rescued. Duo swallowed thickly. Panic welled up in his chest and he drew his knees up. He didn’t want to die, not today, not in seven months, not in a year after that. But more than that he didn’t want to die far away from anyone else, unknown and forgotten. He knew that the people he had touched during the war would remember him — fondly or as a terrorist. 

Memory fades. The lesson that Duo had learned as a kid, and then as a teen, and then as a Gundam pilot was that no matter how hard you held onto your memories of the people you loved they would vanish from the corners of your mind. He didn’t have any pictures of Sister Helen or Father Maxwell from the church and he could no longer recall their faces.

He didn’t want that to happen. He didn’t want Heero, Quatre, Wufei, Hilde, Howard — he didn’t want them to wake up one morning and think _I remember Duo, but nothing about him._ Because the next step was not thinking of him at all. Grief was fickle, difficult and easily erased by time.

“This is why I didn’t tell you.” Trowa said.

“Fuck you.” Duo hissed, ignored Trowa’s hand on his shoulder and how Trowa had gotten up to lean over Duo’s back and offer him what little support he had. In the two years they had spent together they had never hugged. Duo used to drop an arm over Trowa’s shoulder, bump him with his hip or elbow, friendly touches that drew them together in their voluntary exile. Trowa had never initiated the contact and physical affection was hardly his strong point, but in the five months since the first system failure they hadn’t touched at all. He must have assumed Duo needed contact.

He was right.

“Heero thought you might react poorly as well.”

“Well, he’s not here, is he? You two — had no right keeping this from me. God fucking dammit, Trowa. Don’t you get it? I — I hate it, hell, it scares the shit out of me. But I want to know what’s coming, I need to know.” Duo leaned back into Trowa. He reached back with his hands, he pulled as much of Trowa as he could into contact with his body. “No one wants to die blindly. Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s torture and it isn’t like I didn’t know something was up. You telling me now doesn’t change the fact — or anything I said. Fuck. We’re going to die out here.”

“We might fall asleep on December 31st and wake up in the new year to a rescue.” Trowa said softly.

“When have either of us been that lucky?”

“I don’t enjoy being spared either.”

Trowa didn’t pull away when Duo didn’t answer. He stayed bent over Duo and the chair in a position that must have been backbreaking. He let Duo cling to him and they stared out the window of the bridge and watched the stars go by.


	6. Chapter 6

# June

Trowa kicked in his sleep. A month after Duo fixed the valve the temperature in the whole station dropped again. They estimated that soon the gardens would winter over and die and in July they should just cut the climate controls there to save power. There wasn’t a lot of non-perishable food on the ship, a few months of supplements and rations, they’d have to save those. Duo had proposed they pull their bedrolls together, it would be warmer and that opened up more floor space in the bridge for storage.

But Trowa kicked in his sleep.

“We have to change how we sleep.” Duo said, after the fifth night. Trowa blinked at him. “You kick.”

“Do I?”

“I have the bruises to prove it. What, don’t you remember your dreams?”

“I don’t think I kick in my dreams.”

“Do you run?”

Trowa pulled on his jacket. “I’m going to go to the garden, do you want to come or stay warm?”

“I run in my dreams too, but usually it’s towards something. One time it was towards Heero and he served me a buffet. All you can eat fruit salad. The next morning I told him about it and did you know, he didn’t care at all.”

“I don’t know what I run from in my dreams, I don’t remember that much. Do you want to come with me?”

“I’ll stay warm, thanks though, Tro’.”

It was the first time in months they had interacted normally again. Duo waved, blew Trowa a kiss. Trowa waved back as he headed through the door. Duo stayed on their joined bedrolls until Trowa got back, he told himself it was to keep the blankets warm because the hallways were cold enough to frost over. He fell asleep, again, and woke up to Trowa’s ice cold fingers against his cheek.

“Holy — “ Duo scrambled, waved his arms, was torn between trying to cover his face with the blanket and grab for the gun that wasn’t there to shoot the intruder.

“Breakfast,” Trowa said, almost triumphantly, and dropped some of those bizarre looking donut peaches onto the blanket. “Got most of the last of the fruits, they won’t make it through the next week, probably.”

“Think we could dry them out under the lamp?”

Trowa snorted. “We could try, they might just go off though.”

“Who invented these?” Duo tossed a square apple from one hand to the next, “It just looks weird, and I grew up on colonized pseudo-foods.”

“Don’t know.”

“When we get back maybe I’ll go to school for this kind of stuff. Botany and growing. I bet there’s a way to engineer plants to grow anywhere, I mean, they grew on this hunk of junk.”

Trowa settled next to Duo and bit into a peach. Duo watched, found himself only mildly annoyed that Trowa couldn’t even bite a peach like a normal person, the juice contained behind lips, with no mess at all.

“No, no, Trowa, come on.” Duo rolled his eyes and leaned closer. “Like this.” And he bit into his own peach, showed off his lips and chin where the juice dribbled out and made a mess of his face. Then he took another bite and let his nose get buried in the open wet cavity of the fruit.

He looked sidelong at Trowa, grinned with all his teeth and swallowed.

Trowa stared. Then he looked down at the peach in his own hand, as if the answer was found in the fruit.

“The proper way to eat a peach, huh.”

“Yeah, enjoy it.”

With some trepidation Trowa raised the peach and then dropped his jaw. He seemed to measure the peach, trying to approximate what size bite he would need to mimic Duo’s, and then slowly bit into it. Trowa’s bite was excruciatingly slow and he finally pulled the fruit away, a fountain of juice escaped his mouth — but he looked so unsure, cheeks slightly puffed and eyes a little wide that Duo started laughing. Trowa quickly swallowed, ducked his head.

“No good?” He asked.

“No, no that was fucking perfect. Can you do it again? I wish I had a camera, that was beautiful. Your face — ! You looked like, well, you know when a kid thinks he can get away with eating everything and stuffs it in their mouth and then gets caught? Only — only more confused!”

“Better than fruit salad?” Trowa asked.

“So much better. _So much better._ ”

They only ate one more piece of fruit each, determined the save the rest for a treat.

“So about the kicking.” Duo brought up again. They rinsed their fingers and mouths in water and sat at the chairs on the bridge again, as if there was something to do. “Maybe instead of face to face you should let me sleep at your back.”

“You don’t sleep with a knife, do you?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Your Gundam was the stab-happy one.”

“Okay, we can try it.”

They have to practice, first. Duo settled himself against Trowa’s back and he felt the tension across Trowa’s shoulders, but the other’s breathing stayed even. He waited for a few minutes but Trowa showed no sign of relaxing.

“It’s not going to work if you can’t relax.”

“It will work.”

“I’d let you sleep at my back, but then you’d just kick me in the ass.”

“It’ll work.” Trowa said again. Duo watched and felt Trowa’s back loosen. 

“Shit, Heero doesn’t have anything on your body control. How do you do that?”

“Heero doesn’t care that I kick.”

That made Duo laugh. He didn’t see Trowa’s hand move, but he felt Trowa’s arm shift. If he could have seen around Trowa he would have seen a white knuckled grip on the corner of the blanket. But he didn’t.

“Does he cuddle, though?”

“Yes.”

“Do you?”

“Isn’t this cuddling?”

Duo snorted. “No, this is me trying to save my legs from being demolished by your pointy toes. And, this would mean _I_ cuddle. Which, I do.”

“Doesn’t the taller person usually curl around the other person?” Trowa’s voice was almost sullen. 

“Good night, Tro’.”

“Good night, Duo.”


	7. Chapter 7

# July

Halfway through Trowa’s ‘July’ sheet, another valve broke. Trowa cursed right before the alarm flashed on the panel. He shut his eyes. Duo watched Trowa scowl, watched him get up, sit back down. “Duo, you’ll have to go again.”

“Shouldn’t we switch off?”

“I’ve never gutted a colony before.”

“Gee, I’m glad my experience is worth something.”

“I’ll — route light and heat.” Trowa frowned, and stilled. Duo knew it was his thinking expression, the kind of look Trowa only had when he was running complicated probabilities in his head. It was a look that had fooled countless people too, neutral, trusting, a little vulnerable and submissive. Trowa’s preferred mask freaked Duo out, a little, any good survivor would know there was something dangerous about anyone who offered as much as Trowa did with that expression. “You’ll have to run, it might get slick. Heat will melt some of the frost.”

“I’ve got steady feet.” 

“Wear my jacket too.”

“Tro’, I’m broader than you even if you’re taller than me. We can’t just share clothes.”

Trowa stared at him as if that hadn’t occurred to him and plucked the hem of his jacket. “Is that so.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I’m your copilot, remember?”

“All right, let me know when you’re ready.” Trowa started typing. Duo dressed — double gloves, double socks, two shirts, jacket and the blanket they’d cut into a poncho. He grabbed extra wiring, last valve fix had been easy, this one would be more complicated. “If you need to make two trips, do it.”

“You worry a lot for a robot, Tro’.”

“Before I came up to space they installed a program called ‘compassion’.” Duo’s eyebrows shot up and he gaped at Trowa. He couldn’t see Trowa’s face, but he imagined there was Trowa’s small secret smile on his face.

“Well, I hope they also installed a program called ‘Spoil Duo Maxwell rotten’, I’m out!” He raced down the hall and tried to ignore the biting cold. He bypassed the first panel, bet the second one would be the one with problems again.

Maxwell luck was just always terrible.

The second valve looked fine. Duo’s swear words got caught in the wiring and even with Trowa rerouting heat to the floor along with the light the sweat at the back of his neck turned chill far too fast. He fumbled with the hatch door, shoved it back in place and backtracked to the first maintenance hatch. 

The corner was tight. He had known that from last time, but even as he thought that his left foot slid a little too far to the left and his body careened out of balance. Duo smacked right into the frigid wall. His cheek stuck lightly and with a strangled curse Duo jerked his head back but the movement unsettled him again and he fell, banged his head on the floor. The echo of his fall rang through the halls.

“Everything’s fine!” He yelled, even as he failed to stand, twice. “Kicked the door.” Which was technically true, if the pain in his foot was anything to go by. He probably had kicked the hatch when he slid around the corner.

The valve under this hatch had been completely burned out. There was no salvaging it. Duo groaned and worked to patch it as quickly as possible. There wasn’t much he could do besides restore connection and hope it would conduct enough for as long as they needed.

He couldn’t feel his fingers through his gloves when he finished. The hatch door was almost impossible to put back. He struggled and bit back frustrated tears before it finally snapped into place. Duo felt ridiculous for nearly crying over a _hatch_ but the air sat in his lungs like weight and his cheeks had gone from stiff to numb and he ran back to the bridge.

The hot hair seared his face, he thought his ears were going to fall off. Duo took hurried choked gasps, tried to undo his jacket and huddle down on himself simultaneously. He had forgotten the blanket draped around his shoulders.

“Duo — “ Trowa was there. He swatted at Duo’s hands, and easily removed the blanket, jacket and gloves, shoes and socks. He tucked Duo’s hands under his arm pits, arms crossed over his chest, firmly said, “Keep them there.” Then he leaned over, cupped his own hands over Duo’s ears, to draw the ice out of them. Trowa bent over Duo’s feet, warmed them with his thighs. He said something, but Duo couldn’t hear, wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.

After a frigid eternity followed by stabbing hot pain, Duo shifted, pulled a bit away from Trowa. “I’m okay, it’s just fucking cold.”

“You could have come back and taken another trip.” Trowa admonished, leaned back too, but he caught Duo’s elbows, untucked his arms, twined their fingers together. He was Duo’s warm anchor. “There’s a little blood in your hair, you’ll have a headache later.”

“I have a headache now.”

“I’m sorry.” Trowa squeezed Duo’s hands. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want to be nobody, Tro’. I want — people to be able to look me up in the history books and get it right. Not look up whatever propaganda gets written about us when we die. I don’t want my life to be remembered as a lie but I don’t want to be forgotten.” His shoulders rolled forward and he hunched. Trowa pulled him closer. 

“I’ll remember you.” Trowa promised. “The others will too — “

“And then they’ll die. We all die, Trowa.”

Trowa’s lips quirked, Duo couldn’t see the expression but he could hear the dreaded amusement, “Are you saying that you want to live forever?” He doesn’t let Duo answer, neither of them wants to talk about that. Instead Trowa moved his hands down Duo’s arms, down his sides, he worried at the hem of Duo’s shirt with his thumbs.

“. . . Yeah.” Duo said in response to Trowa’s gesture. Then they’re both undressed. Duo was still cold, but he stole warmth from Trowa with his fingers and his mouth. They spread out on the floor, next to their bedrolls, because it will minimize the mess. It wasn’t quite fucking. They just pressed together with desperation. Trowa came first, then Duo. Then they jerk each other off, still desperate. Duo’s head ached through it all, his back and hip sore from the fall. It didn’t do anything to remind them that they were alive, but after they were too exhausted to move and stayed naked and cold on the floor and watched the stars.


	8. Chapter 8

# July

“I don’t know a lot about you.” Trowa said.

“Yeah, well, the war wasn’t exactly let’s share our life story time.”

“The war has been over for a while.”

“And you’re definitely forthcoming.” Duo rolled over on the bedrolls, looked at Trowa. There wasn’t anything but open curiosity on Trowa’s face and that troubled him. “Why don’t you go first?”

“My parents are probably dead.”

“Yours and everyone elses.”

“The first thing I remember is fire, I think.” Trowa shrugged, somehow still elegant while in bed. 

“You know what’s weird? My earliest memory is ham. I don’t even like ham, but it’s seeing some through a window? Looking in on someone eating ham, and I can still picture it. Glazed ham.” Duo shut his eyes. Ham with crispy shiny skin and a soft pink center dotted with spice and fruit. He could smell it too, roasted, sweet, a little smoky. “Fuck. I really want some ham.”

“I thought you didn’t like ham.”

“It smells divine.”

They stayed silent again, for a while, before Trowa spoke up again. “I was raised by mercenaries, then I joined other groups.” Duo had known Trowa was a mercenary before the war, it had been in his file, in his gestures and Trowa had mentioned it off-hand one day. He’d always assumed when Trowa had been a scrawny pre-teen he’d joined up with an Earth militia. The mental picture had been too good to pass up, because Duo had always wanted to imagine Trowa younger, softer, with a little bit of hope in his face. Or maybe it had been cruelty, because Duo had seen people who hoped for better lives in war get ground down into nothing. 

“I didn’t know mercenaries liked babies.”

“They like useful ones.”

“I, uh, you know just because you tell me things doesn’t mean I’ll tell you things.”

“I know.” Trowa plucked at Duo’s sleeve with disinterest. “I’m not looking to die as — as someone else.”

“I don’t know why you’re so hung up on that. You’re Trowa to us and you made a place for yourself, wasn’t the circus home?”

“It’s a place to go back to.” Trowa picked at his own sleeve, then. “I felt — nothing there was my own.”

Duo knew a little bit about traveling groups like the circus. A lot of things were shared, from living quarters to amenities. He’d seen the circus too, saw Catherine and her selfless offerings. And, Duo knew his own life and how the gang he had lived with first had shared everything and the only thing that had been his own was his name. Then the church, and again the only thing that was his was the name that he took after everyone else was killed. But after that, Deathscythe was his, his actions were his own, his life was his own. He could choose to do what he wanted, he could run, he could hide, he could go anywhere and do anything he wanted. Duo had always been fiercely proud of his ability to choose.

“These clothes aren’t even ours,” Trowa said wryly.

“When we get back, let’s just go crazy with power. We’ll go shopping and eat cake and go egg Relena’s house.” Duo grinned. “Maybe you should cut your hair, or dye it. Let’s buy motorcycles and sign up for knitting classes or something.”

“Hm.”

“It’s really that easy, I promise.”

“Okay, let’s do that.” Trowa shared a small shy grin. He looked almost bashful.

“I used to run with a gang, as a tiny little thing. It’s where I learned to steal and got my name, chose it myself.” Duo thumped his hand against his chest. “I’ve been making my life up from stuff I take from other people forever. So you can’t get all jealous about my independence, you could have always chosen to be someone else.”

The look on Trowa’s face said refusal, but he didn’t say it out loud. Their hands twined together, again. Duo leaned forward, rested forehead to forehead.

“Sometimes you don’t have to wait to get paid, Tro’, that’s what I’m saying.”

“. . . I never actually got paid.” Trowa blinked and honest surprise sat on his face. “Not in money. My share always went back into the camp pool. Things could be earned or given but — a kid’s possessions usually go to the parent.”

“Did you get paid in like — stuff?”

“Clothes, a place to stay, food? But not in anything to take away.”

“We gotta work on that. Your negotiation skills are shit, man.”

Trowa looked startled again, or maybe he hadn’t finished looking surprised. Duo grinned, lopsided, tried to be as inviting as possible with the expression. Something softened on Trowa’s face and he laughed, low and private. It was another shared secret for them.


	9. Chapter 9

# August

Trowa tried to teach Duo how to juggle. They used the peach pits, that were too light, too irregular shaped and every time Duo made a desperate grab for one the sharp end inevitably stabbed him in the palm.

“I’m going to have bloody hands by the time I can do more than three at a time.” He complained.

“It isn’t that hard.” Trowa said.

“Easy for you to say, where did you learn this anyway? I didn’t know mercenaries juggled.”

Trowa seemed to think about it. “There was a man, in the first group I was with, who used to juggle knives.”

“And you, at the ripe and wise age of eight, decided to learn juggling with knives.” 

“He thought it would be safer for me than piloting, then.” Trowa shrugged, reversed direction of the seven peach pits he juggled. “He taught me how to throw a knife too. There was a lot of downtime when we didn’t have a job. It was either learn things like that or learn other things.”

“I know how to make things disappear, but I was never good at stuff like this. Some kids used to do it, you know, someone pulls them in and someone else liberates their goods.” Duo cursed as he dropped another peach pit.

“Do you miss it?”

“Hm?”

“Stealing.”

“Who said I don’t do it anymore?”

That made Trowa pause. He neatly caught the seven pits, plucked them out of the air.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I bet you don’t like obeying traffic signals either,” Duo winked. “When you go to a store and the clerk asks if they can help you with something do you ever just want to punch them in the face? Every time I go to a grocery store I keep thinking there’s going to be a platoon or something behind the corner. Maybe a cop in the backroom, just waiting to knock some street rat heads with his club. But that’s not at all where the enjoyment comes from. A proper heist takes planning, skill, an exit strategy. It’s a performance art.”

There’s two different stories in that speech. Duo knew that Trowa could pull them apart and read them separately, because he’d figured out what Trowa’s language was, now. There was still a chasm between them — trust — but years now of familiarity and the recent desperation bridge that neatly. Now they were desperate to know each other while the clock counted down.

“I don’t.” Trowa agreed. “You’re really a thief.”

“‘Cos I want to be.”

“You want to be more than that.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“No, and you’re — you do this.” Trowa waved a hand. “Evade? You talk a lot, and share some, your advice isn’t bad but I wonder if you even care.”

Duo swallowed. He tightened his hand around the peach pits, felt the rough edges dig into his skin. He knew it was an attack, an attempt to force him to open up even more. Trowa seemed to alternate between gentle prodding and flat, harsh digs. It was the same as when Trowa would deliberately — he made sure Duo watched — crossed off each day on his calendar. Duo never watched to see what the date was, or the month, but he knew the action and the sound of the pen across the paper. Trowa was carefully, deliberately, closing every door, because he said he wouldn’t let Duo die alone. Because they were going — to try — to go home together.

“You do too, except you just stop.” Duo countered.

“Then you need to push too. Not everything can be solved with a neat word and intent to pretend to be happy.”

“Thanks, I really want to think about my impending death every day.”

“I think you’ll be happier, this way.”

“I don’t need you to make that decision for me.” The old anger, months old anger, burned his throat. “But you’re really good at that, aren’t you?”

“You’re my copilot.”

“Do you even understand what that means?”

“Yes, it means we’re in this together. I’m not going anywhere without you.” Trowa set the peach pits on the top of the control panel. He lined them up deliberately. “It means if you need me, I’m here.”

“And what about when I don’t need you?”

“Then you won’t need me anymore.”

Duo threw the pits in his hands at Trowa. He picked up the ones Trowa set down and threw them too. He fumed. “I should just kill us both and save myself the suspense.”

“No one will remember you, if you do.”

“As if someone will remember me here, now, when are we really going to die, Tro’? Tomorrow? The day after?”

“Stress relief.” Trowa said, but he also moved to strike Duo, across the face, with the heel of his palm. They fought, again. Like every other time they fought it was brutal and messy. They were both too tired and too worn out for tricks but tried them anyway. Trowa slammed Duo’s face into the side of the control panel and Duo scratched at Trowa’s eyes, just barely missed blinding him. Duo grabbed Trowa’s shirt collar and twisted with his wrist, wrapping the fabric tight around Trowa’s throat.

“I’m not dying here.” 

Trowa smiled, in response. Blood started to well up through the scratches on his face in a line of rugged dots. He licked his lips.

“I’m not dying here, you’re not dying here. Fuck — fuck it, Trowa. Fuck you.” 

Trowa nodded. The silence stretched, it twisted, it devoured them both. Duo slowly forced his fingers to relax, let Trowa breathe. He didn’t bother to calm his breath. He let it run ragged, his whole body shook with each breath. Duo was desperately alive.

“We’re not dying here.” Trowa agreed, leaned forward and kissed Duo. It was tender, the kind of kiss that made Duo believe that Trowa played the flute, but doubted Trowa had ever been a mercenary. He didn’t invade Duo’s mouth, just pressed and licked and whispered with his touch. It calmed Duo in a way it shouldn’t.

Duo ran his hands down Trowa’s sides, settled his trembling fingers on his hips. He just held Trowa and they kissed like it was their first all over again — even though it wasn’t Duo’s and he was sure it wasn’t Trowa’s. They stayed linked like nervous kids.

“I want to see you. I’d like it if you saw me too.” Trowa’s voice is hushed and his eyelids fluttered, shuttered, it was as if he didn’t want Duo to understand.

“I’m looking right at you, Tro’.”

Trowa pulled back, methodically undid the buttons on his shirt. Everything about the motions he made was mechanical. Trowa undressed in the same way he might take apart a rifle, clear the gunk from an engine, it was as impersonal as a bullet. A lifetime was written on his skin.

“I think I’m losing it, Duo.” Trowa confessed, stood there nude, crossed his arms over his chest. Duo recognized the shape of most of the scars — bullets, shrapnel, knives. “Do I look crazy?”

“You are standing in front of me naked.”

“Duo.”

“I’m looking, I don’t know what you want me to see.”

“We’re not dying here.” Trowa repeated. “Can I kiss you again?”

“We’re kind of beyond kissing, now.”

Trowa shrugged, the whole motion recorded in the flow of his muscles. Duo looked at his shoulders, his ribs, and then the scars on Trowa’s hips and right thigh that were not made by weapons of war. The scars were almost tattoos — a lionhead, a cross, ten bullets, a web of lines that looked like a shattered sun. Things he hadn’t seen before, even in their hurried bouts of pleasure seeking.

“You do those yourself?”

“Some, some I had someone do.”

“Ink isn’t good enough for you?” Duo was fascinated. The ten bullets looked the oldest, they marched down Trowa’s hip bone, almost flat against his skin.

“Where was I going to get ink?” Trowa shrugged and turned around. “I didn’t do any of these.” Duo could tell. Trowa’s back was dominated by a twisted length of pink scar tissue that had feathered veins. Then there were long narrow scars. Nothing artistic about them.

“Duo,” Trowa’s voice sounded hoarse. “Talk to me.”

“What should I talk about?”

“Anything.” Trowa turned back around. He didn’t put his clothes back on. Duo started to remove his own shirt, in contrast to Trowa his motions were jerky, hesitant. “You don’t have to — hearing you is fine.”

“This is fucked up.” Duo said. “Is this some kind of like — we’re not in a relationship, Tro’. I wouldn’t mind if we were but weren’t you — ?”

“Yeah, but we’re here. You’re lonely, we’re alone.” Trowa’s chin bobbed against his chest, his eyes locked on the floor.

“I am. But you know, for a while it wasn’t bad. I liked spending time with you, even if you were quiet and you’re a lying asshole. I didn’t mind, until you fucked up.” Duo kept talking. He talked about his childhood, a little. He talked about how he thought Trowa’s turtlenecks were awful. Duo mentioned what he thought about everyone they knew during the war, he did impressions, he talked a little bit about what living at a church had been like. Trowa rocked on his heels, wrapped his arms around himself and kept his eyes shut. He just listened.

Duo didn’t end up undressing, instead when he was tired of talking he pulled Trowa into an embrace and they went to sleep, face to face instead of spooned together.


	10. Chapter 10

# September

They traded handjobs every other day or so, it was almost with habitual nonchalance. It got colder. They ran out of fresh food and broke into the rations.

“I hate these.” Duo said, wiggled the package of protein bar at Trowa. “It’s made out of like — seaweed, too.”

“It’s more efficient than canned food.” Trowa shrugged. He had already eaten his. They had both lost weight, both looked like shit. In the middle of the night Duo would wake and wonder if the air was getting thinner and he would, often, find Trowa staring at him. But they never spoke then.

“Yeah, we don’t even have a can opener.”

The comm beeped. Trowa didn’t get up, but Duo practically vaulted over to it. “Hey — Heero! Hi, Quatre. Wow, the gang’s all there. Yeah, it’s mid- uhhh, what month are we in, Trowa?”

“September.”

“Mid-September, so we’ll be at the rendezvous in two and a half months.”

“Oh, that’s good, we’ll see you then.” Quatre said and he ducked his head, “I’m sorry, I can’t stay long — I wanted to see your faces. Trowa — “

“Tro’, get over here.”

Trowa joined Duo at the comm, he smiled. Quatre smiled tentatively back at them. Heero didn’t shift his expression but his eyes moved over Duo’s face, over Trowa’s face. Wufei was still out on assignment, he would be until after the meet-up point was planned.

“Hey, Quatre.”

“So, have we missed anything? Space is weirdly boring when all you’re doing is nothing.” Duo chewed his lower lip, “Tro’ and I have been bored out of our minds. Once you stop doing all the every day — chores, we just sit around and pick lint off each other.”

“We have each other.” Trowa said. His eyes flicked from Quatre to Heero and back to Quatre. “Even if he talks too much.” Quatre put his hands over his mouth, as if to stifle a laugh, but his eyes were so sad. Duo frowned.

“I don’t talk too much, you just don’t hold up your end of the bargain! Conversation is a two person street, you know?”

The rest of the conversation was idle chatter. Duo and Quatre did most of the talking, Trowa embellished things and Heero kept his silence.

“We’ll lose comms late next month.” Trowa said, as the call neared the end. “We’ll call before we do, but then it will be radio silence until the rendezvous.” 

“Trowa.” Heero said the name slowly and leaned closer to the monitor. Duo looked between the two, but both of them were bringing their A game. Heero’s perfect soldier facade waterproof tight against his features. Trowa’s own neutral mask just as unreadable. “We’ll welcome you home.”

“Good, we’ll see you then.”

“Bye, Quat, Heero.” Duo waved. Trowa also waved, but he didn’t say goodbye. Quatre choked out a goodbye and Heero just nodded.

“You guys are still hiding stuff, huh.” Duo leaned against the comm panel. His arms crossed but he couldn’t even feel the old anger. Trowa had been right — Duo had relaxed, he’d relaxed too much and now there was only a warm hollow where his rage had been. “My copilot remains a fucker.”

“We’re planning a surprise party.” Trowa smirked. “For your birthday.”

“I don’t know when my birthday is.”

“Exactly.”

“So, you’re just going to make up my birthday without consulting me? What if I had already picked out a day.”

“What day is it?”

Duo hadn’t picked a day out. He scratched his nose, scuffed his socked foot against the floor. “Well, you got me there, but still.”

“It would be nice to celebrate making it back.” 

“Why not your birthday?”

“I usually — “ Trowa sighed. He folded into himself, shoulders drew in and hands dropped to his sides. “Write down the day Trowa Barton was shot and killed.”

“Morbid.”

“And what do you put down?”

“The day the church burned down.”

“This will be much better.” Trowa’s fingers twitched. “We could share it, if you want.”

“Doesn’t that make us twins who’ve been fucking?” Duo watched Trowa’s fingers smooth over his trousers, watched them clench, watched them relax. Duo wondered if it was the time or the air. Trowa never fidgeted and yet here he was. Duo had all sorts of nervous body posture, he shifted to the balls of his feet or twisted, leaned, moved into people’s personal space. But now he stood still and watched Trowa attempt to worry a hole in his pants.

“You don’t think that isn’t a good tagline for the party? Hot fucking twins.” A small smile.

“You’re really working this twins angle hard. I can’t complain too much, I mean, everyone _does_ want to get closer to me, right?” Duo spun a bit, turned a slow seductive circle. He knew Trowa’s eyes were glued to him, they both had stopped pretending to not be interested in each other’s bodies long ago. It was all the other things neither would give — heart, trust, dreams — even if they traded histories and sex.

“I’m a lucky guy, having you all to myself.”

Duo hummed and he turned again. In a practiced motion he undid his braid and pushed his fingers through the hair. Their last showers had been three days ago, the water cycling system was dying. He combed it out, rocked his hips, started to shrug out of his shirt.

“Are you looking at me, Tro’?”

“I only see you, Duo.”

“Good, don’t look away.” Duo skimmed his finger across his undershirt before he drew it up over his head. He showed off his stomach — the long scar that ran from right hipbone to just past his bellybutton, and years of street scuffles marked on his skin. Three skulls surrounded by blackness and stars ran down his side, etched in old black ink that Duo had never gotten touched up. He turned, held up his hair to show the cascade of tattoos down his back, the ink covered scars and told the story of Orpheus but he dropped his hair back down before too long. Trowa hadn’t explained his, so Duo wasn’t going to give him a freebie.

“Ink.” Trowa’s hushed voice barely met Duo’s ears.

“Mmmhmm.” His pants were next, hurried yanked down, then his boxers. His left knee was covered in a whorl, abstract white and black curved triangles. They covered a scar from a bad fall on the pavement where he’d skidded, ripping skin off. The bottom of his feet were scarred, but there was no reason to show Trowa that specifically. “My body enough?” It was a tease, but Trowa stood up, rigid.

“Duo — you didn’t have to.”

“How much time do we have left, Tro’, really? What are you going to do? You said you wouldn’t leave me.” 

Duo moved closer, dropped his arms over Trowa’s shoulders, he rocked their hips together. “You’re really into me, aren’t you? Me too, after all this time, you’re the only other warm thing here. I’m fucking dying, Tro’ and you’re putting the nails in the coffin.”

“Until the end of December,” Trowa murmured the words into Duo’s hair. He tangled his hands in it. “I see you, I see all of you. We — should fuck, really fuck. I want you in me.”

“Tro’, we don’t _have_ anything.” Duo laughed though. They hadn’t thought to bring lube, either of them, or condoms or anything. Five years in space with no one else around except the occasional visitor and they didn’t bring anything because they hadn’t planned on fucking each other. “You’re really losing it. You just asked me to fuck you. Like that — with those words — you said “we should fuck. I want you in me.” Are you all right, Tro’? You can’t go crazy on me now.”

“You’re beautiful.” Trowa undid his pants, pushed them down, tried to keep one hand around Duo at all times. “I’m not going crazy. I just — realized the funniest thing. That’s all.”

Duo realized, as Trowa sank to his knees to suck him off, that this was Trowa’s version of his hysteric laugh. Where Duo had slipped in and out of hysteria since their January, Trowa was only unraveling now. Their desperate touching seemed to push him further each day. Maybe it was guilt.

“Share the joke with the class, Mr. Barton.” 

“Fuck me, Duo.” Trowa sat back on his heels, he didn’t bother to wipe the saliva off his chin. “Is my body enough for you?”

Duo kneed him in the face.

“I’m never forgiving you, Tro’ — but we’re in this together. Not like this. If we’re going to do this we’re going to do it proper, because for some reason I fucking care and I know you do too. Even if you’re playing these headgames with me — “

Trowa laughed into the floor. It was short, bitter, terrible. “You too. You’re playing them too.”

“Yeah, but you started them.”

“Get dressed Duo, we should go to sleep.”

“Yeah, I’m exhausted.”


	11. Chapter 11

# October

“Halfway-through the month, should give them a call.” Trowa said. They laid together on the bedrolls. They had switched to eating every other day, today was an off day. Neither of them wanted to get up. They were filthy. They stopped jerking each other off, it wasn’t fulfilling, it only made them tired. It had, probably, never been that fulfilling.

“Should pretty up for them,” Duo grinned, but it was worn at the edges. Trowa snorted. 

“I’ll brush your hair, if you have a brush.”

“That’s sweet of you to offer, you’re going soft on me, Barton.”

“Three years, almost, I figured I owed you, finally.”

“Should have started off spoiling me, we might’ve been in a different position then, now.”

“We could always get there, isn’t that what you want?”

“What makes you say that? It’s the hair, isn’t it?” Duo shook his head and Trowa moved seamlessly with the motion, not even getting the brush tangled. “It’s because it’s fuck-me hair, right?”

“Physical comfort.”

“Don’t get all high and mighty on me, what about you?”

“. . . That was my offer, it wasn’t an accusation.”

Duo twisted to look at Trowa over his shoulder. “You really, _really_ need to work on your negotiation skills.”

“It’s on my bucket list to fuck everything up, so why not this too?” Trowa replied glibly.

“Well, shit, when you put it that way, I’ll have to honor your last wishes, huh.”

“Only if you want to, is that too tight?” Trowa rebraided Duo’s hair.

“It’s just fine, I’m sure they’ve seen us at worse, before.”

“Yes, like at the end of a gun barrel. Very memorable.”

Their call to Quatre and Heero was short. They said hellos, goodbyes, well wishes, plans for when they went home. Duo laughed and told jokes and Trowa even chuckled. For ten minutes it seemed like they were teenagers again, right after the war and high on their own success and longing.

“The next time we’ll talk, it will be in person.” Trowa promised.

“Keep the coffee on for us,” Duo added.

“See you then,” Quatre whispered.

“Goodbye, Trowa. Duo.” Heero said.

After the call, Duo and Trowa curled up on the bedrolls again. They always slept face to face, now, limbs tangled. Trowa stopped kicking at night and if either of them woke up — well, that was expected.

“We should get Quatre an apology gift.” Duo said.

“A what?”

“A gift to apologize for scaring the shit out of him. Didn’t it look like he was going to cry, just now? Let’s get him a giant gummy penis or a parrot that only screeches obscenities.”

Trowa shook with silent laughter, tired laughter and nodded. “All right. Should we get Heero one too?”

“Did you think he looked worried? For as much time as I spend with the guy — spent, I guess, years ago — he always remained kind of impassive. I mean, he’s expressive, but it’s almost like . . .”

“He had the same expression Quatre did.” Trowa murmured.

“How could you tell?”

“Body language, not just his face. You could always experiment, try to surprise him with different news. Tell him Relena got assassinated and watch for the signs.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“I’ve never done that.”

Duo drew his knees up between them. “A little over two months, before we’ll see them and stop being so damned cold.”

“Air quality will change, too. It’s already changed, but when we see them — “

“Clear skies and smooth sailing, you’re saying?”

“Exactly that.”

“I’m not glad it was you up here with me. Heero wouldn’t leave me in the dark, or maybe he would, but he wouldn’t try to fuck with me too. Quatre would be honest, but he’d probably cry. And ‘Fei — can you imagine the station rebelling against him? I don’t think he’d let it get away with it.”

“. . . I’m glad that I have you with me.”

“Fuck, Tro’, don’t say shit like that. I’m trying to be smooth and flippant over here and you’re just confessing.”

“You know I don’t love you.”

Duo swallowed. “You don’t have to say it like that. I still got a heart here and you’re trying to run it over.”

“You know what I mean.” Trowa wrapped his arms loosely around Duo. “It’s as good as we’re going to get, for a while, anyway.”

“Good night, Tro’.”

“Good night, Duo.”


	12. Chapter 12

# November

Trowa looked at the last calendar sheet. Duo wasn’t paying attention to him, he was counting their food. There was two months of food, since they had mapped the timeline months ago. But Duo had the habit of counting their supplies, checked them often, coveted them. Over the past 29 days, Duo had grown increasingly possessive of the food, like he owned it. Really, Trowa didn’t mind. He’d never owned supplies, they were all part of the pooled items of whichever group he had been with. Food stores were about practicality, not ownership or assertiveness.

He marked off the second to last day on the grid. November 29th, going on 30th.

“Duo.” Trowa tucked the November sheet away, hid the paper with its long gash from where Duo had shoved him, so many months ago, under the rest of the calendar pieces of paper. “Do you want to try it? That will give us a month to recover.” His mouth quirked into a grin that he’d developed just because of Duo. It was half Duo’s easy smile, wide and split with mirrored mirth, and then it was half Trowa’s own secretive joy. It was, on other words, 95% false.

“Try what?” Duo moved on to fuss with his hair. He twisted the braid in his hand. 

“Fucking.” Trowa stretched, felt his muscles and bones grind and pop. His body hated what he was doing to it. “Sex. Making love, if you want.”

Duo’s lips twitched. He swallowed, he frowned. He didn’t move any closer to Trowa, but watched with wary eyes. When they were stressed they fell back into their oldest defenses. Duo was aggressive, assertive, bravado and hoarding. Trowa was passive, passive-aggressive and controlling. They were both always bruised, always had some amount of torn skin, they looked, always, like the war orphans they were.

“Yeah. I can’t feel my fingers, though.” Duo flicked his hand out, curled and uncurled his fingers. “Think I’ll be able to feel my dick in your ass?”

“As much as I’ll be able to feel it, anyway.” It wasn’t a joke. Trowa’s everything felt as numb as Duo’s fingers. They didn’t dare sit on the floor anymore, only chairs and the bedrolls. Mostly the bedrolls, together. “Might keep us warm.” Trowa heard his voice shake a little. Must be the guilt.

“Ever do it with a numb ass before?”

“No, you ever do it with a numb dick before?”

They both shared a broken laugh. It was funny because it was true because when would they have ever needed to exchange those words before? Trowa kept his Duo-smile on, saw the jagged bits reflected in Duo’s actual smile.

“Well, come here, Tro’. I’m not flying this baby solo.”

Duo insisted on working their way up to it. They stripped, kissed, investigated each other’s bodies with thorough mechanicalness. Duo licked each of the scarification marks, pondered the nature of electrical burns and spat his care and loathing into Trowa’s ass. In between those gestures, Trowa kissed Duo, pretended they were both elsewhere, insisted that they not do fuck on the bedrolls. Insisted his knees and elbows on the frigid floor so he had something sharp to ground himself in when Duo thrust into him from behind and they both made apologies neither of them meant.

“I feel you,” Duo leaned down, talked to Trowa’s shoulder as he came, marked his hips with his fingernails. “God — fucking dammit. Tro’, I see you too.” He kissed the jagged snakelike scar on Trowa’s back.

Trowa just held himself up on cold elbows and knees and said: “I’m sorry.” to the floor.

They curled together close on the bedrolls. Shared warmth, their shirts tacky and tossed in the corner with the mound of trash that had accumulated over the months. Duo’s smile had come loose at the corners, but Trowa thought the expression Duo wore after was much more honest and much better. It was tired, Duo’s eyes weren’t open, there was a satisfied sorrow to his face.

Trowa wanted to believe it was because Duo was thinking of how they would meet up with Heero and Quatre, in thirty days. And, he knew, his own expression was solidly the opposite of Duo’s. When he’d apologized he had felt his face shut down. 

“Tro’, when we get back, you gotta show me what’s so great about the circus.” Duo whispered. Trowa wanted to believe that Duo hadn’t seen his face, or hadn’t become accustomed to him enough to know what it meant. 

“Okay. Only if you teach me why stealing is so much fun.” Trowa brushed Duo’s bangs back, pressed a kiss to his forehead. _I’m sorry._ Duo snorted softly, uncurled just enough that his face was turned up at the ceiling, but his eyes were still closed.

Trowa curled in on himself more, buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his arm and waited. He heard it, the small hiss followed by a shift in the air. Soon, then.

“Good night, Duo.”

There was no answer. Trowa turned his face up, towards the ceiling too. 

Near the door the vent that had been blowing air clicked, hissed again and continued to sift toxic chemicals into the bridge. The denser poisonous air shifted the calendar pages aside, just enough to reveal the twelve sheets of paper, January to November, with two Julys.

# December

_Wufei - These letters are for your studies, mostly. I thought you might be interested in the self-sustaining space station. Please see that they’re dealt with properly._

. . . The internal gardens work better than expected. It’s nothing like an actual garden, but it mimics a greenhouse fairly well. The new engineered plants take to it better than the ones from Earth. The meatnuts — as Duo named them — are bland and have the texture of raw chicken fat. But you can get a full meal from them. . .

. . . The water system is ingenious. I attached the blueprint, I think a smaller version could be scaled for low-income homes. . .

. . . The fruit trees have all bloomed and flourished at once. Something’s been done to them so they bear fruit year round, not that there are any true seasons in space. I attached what information I have on them . . .

. . . There isn’t a lot of space to move around, on this station. The hallways have sharp turns. The next one should probably have a recreation center. . .

. . . it looks like the station isn’t built to last longer than two years. 

_Addendum: Add to below as needed. See that it isn’t forgotten._

. . . Duo Maxwell’s birthday will be January 1st, the new year. He was born in 180 A.C., on L2. His life isn’t mine to tell, but 245 lives were lost in the Maxwell Church Massacre and that was only a footnote in a fight. His name and the church are connected, and is his past, but speculation can help make him a legend.

If history chooses to look at the Gundam pilots, it should not overlook Duo. Do not forget him. The events of the war are cataloged already, and there’s no reason to revisit them. 

Duo is an early riser. He can sing, but can’t play any instruments. He speaks three languages. He’s trustworthy. . .

_Addendum:_

. . . Duo never gives up. He’s not a soldier and doesn’t quit because orders have ceased to come his way. . . 

_Addendum:_

. . .don’t let them say he was simple, when they talk about him. . .

_Addendum:_

. . . he was one of the best of us.

_Addendum: November, communication systems being shut down. Goodbye, T.B._


End file.
